Tilley: Lionspeed Drive “Good Practice” for Full GT3 Season

Kyle Tilley described his outing with Lionspeed GP in the Lenovo Gulf 12 Hours as “good practice” ahead of January’s Michelin 6H Abu Dhabi, which forms part of a planned full-season GT3 effort with his own Era Motorsport squad in the Michelin 24H Series next year.

The Indiana-based Brit joins Lionspeed team principal Patrick Kolb and the Bronze-driver pairing of Gabriel Rindone and Bashar Mardini for this weekend’s twelve-hour event at Yas Marina Circuit.

It marks a return to contemporary racing for Tilley, who is well-versed in historic racing but hasn’t competed in modern machinery since he stepped away from Era’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship LMP2 program in 2022.

Next year, Tilley will form part of Era’s full-season effort in the 24H Series, where he will share a Ferrari 296 GT3 with Dwight Merriman, Ryan Dalziel, Oliver Bryant and Jake Hill.

Part of that includes an entry into the Michelin 6H Abu Dhabi on Jan. 18-19, held at the same Yas Marina venue as this weekend’s Gulf 12H.

By his own admission, this weekend’s event marks Tilley’s first racing appearance at the wheel of a GT3 car, although he tested in such cars before.

“I’ve known Patrick [Kolb] for a year or two now and we get on very well,” Tilley told Sportscar365.

“It was a good opportunity to come and be at this event. Low stress, it seemed like a good fit.

“Obviously there’s no secret in the fact that it’ll be good practice ahead of us being here in January with our own Ferrari.

“I’d like to do a bit more modern GT3 stuff. I do miss the modern racing, but I haven’t really got the time to kind of put towards doing it still at the level we were with the LMP2. So this is kind of a halfway step.”

While Tilley has not yet had any mileage in the Lionspeed Porsche, with track running set to commence with a shakedown session on Friday evening, he admitted to being “blown away” by current-day GT3 machinery after recently testing the Era Ferrari.

“It was like they’re far more in line with how you drive the prototype than how you drove the GT stuff,” he said.

“It’s taken a bit of getting used to getting back onto a modern tire versus the bias ply, cross-ply tire that we are running in historics.

“But I’m looking forward to it. A big thank you to Patrick for having me along this weekend.”

Tilley explained that the link-up with Lionspeed comes through historic racing, with the 36-year-old as well as Kolb both active in that type of competition.

“Patrick and I have raced historic Porsches against each other once in a season,” he said.

“And I think he does a really good job with his Lionspeed program. I’m a Porsche fanboy, so it makes sense to come and do [this race] with a Porsche. I’m really looking forward to it.”

Tilley further added that the chance to join Lionspeed in Abu Dhabi came at a time he became increasingly interested to step back into contemporary competition for the first time since his LMP2 exit.

“I’ve not done a modern professional race since Sebring 2022,” he said.

“Things just got too much with trying to run the team and drive and at the time I was dealing with quite a few concussion symptoms and I just couldn’t do it all.

“It was just the right thing to step back in terms of both results with the LMP2 for the team and in terms of my own recovery.

“I love the historic racing because to me the cars have so much more character, but I’ve always missed that final competitive edge that you have to have in the modern stuff.

“I’ve been looking to get back and do something for a little while now and the opportunity came up to do this with Patrick and here we are.”